The legislation is being introduced at the request of Oregon Communities for a Voice in Annexations (OCVA), the Department of Land Conservation and Development, a number of elected officials, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the League of Women Voters, and other citizen advocacy groups around Oregon.

SB 330 (LC 798) was prompted primarily by complaints of retaliation in the form of lawsuits - or threats of lawsuits - by development interests against citizens who have spoken out on public policy issues, especially those related to growth. SLAPP suits have also been used as weapons in school curricula, consumer protection, environmental and other public policy debates.

Nine other states have recently passed anti-SLAPP legislation. Citing Indiana’s anti-SLAPP law, Charlotte Robertson of the Hoosier Environmental Council said, “The legislature wisely recognized the threat to our first amendment rights and passed this measure as an emergency act.” Vanderbilt University’s Freedom Forum feels SLAPPs are one of the most serious threats to free speech and an open democratic process.

OCVA provided DLCD with written testimony from dozens of its members documenting what OCVA Chairman Jeff Lamb called “this form of legal and financial terrorism.” Lamb also said, “the purpose of SLAPPs is to silence the public through intimidation and the threat of losing one’s home, business, assets and financial security. Through SB 330, Goal #1 - citizen involvement - is being protected by the very agency chartered to do just that.”

SB 330 (The Citizen Participation In Government Act of 1999) provides that “a person is not civilly liable for any statement made by the person in the course of participating in an administrative, quasi-judicial or legislative proceeding conducted by a public body.” It also provides for the recovery of “reasonable attorney’s fees” and other expenses. Source: January 15, 1999 News Release from Oregon Communities for a Voice in Annexations, by Jeff Lamb.

The $13 billion outlet industry, which entered the decade building up centers as aggressively as a shopper at a year-end sale, is closing the 1990s like a shopper with five pairs of brown pants and a credit-card bill to pay off. Weak centers and outlet stores are closing as shoppers, who often can match or beat the deals at a department store sale, spend less money and time in outlet malls.

But California developer Steven Craig, a veteran of the outlet center phenomenon, is bucking the trend. His $20 million factory outlet center, which is under construction in Woodburn, is one of very few that will be built nationwide this year. And it's opening in a state that -- thanks to an absence of sales tax and Oregon's 26 million tourists a year -- statistically has more outlet center space per capita than 32 other states, according to an "Opportunity Index" published by Value Retail News, a publication of the International Council of Shopping Centers. California, with 30 outlet malls, has the most. Woodburn Company Stores is scheduled to open in mid-July with 243,000 square feet of shopping and 75 stores -- surpassing the 65 stores in Lincoln City, the oldest and the largest of Oregon's six outlet centers.

So far, though, Craig has announced only 14 tenants, including Brooks Brothers, which sells upscale clothing, Day Runner, which carries calendars and planners, and Factory Brand Shoes, which sells footwear and accessories from Nike, Reebok and other major manufacturers. Many of the Woodburn stores will be the same as those in other Oregon outlet malls. But Craig, who late last year opened a showcase, 300,000-square-foot outlet mall in Carlsbad, Calif., is still optimistic that if he builds it, shoppers will come. In 1997, an estimated 55 million Americans traveled at least 200 miles, round-trip, to shop at factory-outlet shops, according to Consumer Reports.

Unlike the no-frills designs of the early factory outlets, the first phase of the Woodburn center will evoke a Northwest feel with shake wood siding, stonework and lodge-style green shingle roofs. Shoppers will be able to walk from store to store under glass-covered walkways that have the feel of a "big, clear umbrella," Craig said. He also promises at least two restaurants and several snack-coffee shops. Motorists will have direct access to the Woodburn outlet mall off Interstate 5, and Craig has agreed to make more than $1 million worth of traffic improvements at the busy interchange.

Spokesmen for other area outlet centers said that while the Woodburn stores will likely divide the Portland pie further, tourists are a big part of the outlet business, so they don't anticipate losing a lot of ground. More space added Rothschild Realty of New York, which owns the Factory Stores @ Lincoln City and 11 other outlet centers, has added 100,000 square feet and a two-level parking structure since opening the Lincoln City center in 1989. Now, managers are planning to take out a corner of the garage to build another 15,000 square feet to house a yet-to-be-named anchor tenant. Additional parking will be created by this spring behind the existing parking garage. "This is one of the strongest centers in our portfolio, and we still are seeing an increase every year in our sales and our traffic," said Elaine Gesik, general manager of the Lincoln City center, which draws a lot of tourists visiting the coast.

Seaside Factory Outlets, which gets a lot of shoppers from Washington and tourists traveling Highway 101, has grown to 27 stores since opening with six in 1997. And the Columbia Gorge Factory Stores in Troutdale has expanded several times since opening in 1991, said spokeswoman Michele Rothstein. The Troutdale mall, which serves as a regional shopping center, also capitalizes on its location off Interstate 84 just east of Portland.

The smallest Oregon factory-outlet center, in McMinnville, the Tanger Factory Outlet Center, seems to be having the most difficulty attracting shoppers. An eight-theater movie complex moved on the site to boost mall traffic, and mall managers hope to add a restaurant to further cater to the shopping-for-recreation crowd. Ginger Ontiveros, Tanger's regional director of operations, said she believes the Portland market "has a lot of promise, and it's big enough even to support the newcomer to the market."

Nationwide, though, the industry is suffering, in part, from the reckless expansion of the 1990s, said Linda Humphers, editor of Value Retail News.

"Half the centers should never have been built, period," said David Fick, a senior analyst at Legg Mason who specializes in retail real estate investment. "As they start to fall off the cliff, their numbers are dragging the industry down with them." The number of outlet centers nationwide more than tripled -- going from 108 to 329 -- over a nine-year period beginning in 1988, when outlet mania began. The centers, usually located off major highways, were conceived as a way for manufacturers to sell their excess merchandise, theoretically at a discount by shipping directly from factories to company-owed retail stores in modest settings. For a time, the number of centers grew so fast that manufacturers couldn't supply all their stores.

By the end of 1998, there were only 301 such malls, according to Value Retail News. More significantly, many big-name designers whose stores usually anchor the outlet malls and are the primary draw for shoppers are cutting their number of outlet stores after a bumpy year. Jones Apparel Group, for example, plans to cut its 245 outlet stores to around 200 by the end of this year. Lands' End announced that it would close three of its 19 outlet stores.

And as developers readily acknowledge, outlet centers are getting more fierce competition from discount stores like Target. In addition, the outlet stores -- which tend to carry a mix of discontinued items, excess, out-of-season merchandise and made-for-outlet items -- are fighting a perception that they're selling items of lower quality.

Gary Grossoehme, a computer consultant from Portland, regularly visits factory outlet malls with his mother, Joan, but says the novelty is wearing off. Much of the outlet merchandise is "the same thing you have at your local mall. Same stuff, same prices," Grossoehme said during a recent visit to the Troutdale outlet center. "After you've seen four or five of them, you realize that 80 percent of this is all the same." Lydia Fusetti of Corvallis said she "sometimes" finds bargains, like the $109 Adidas running shoes in "last year's colors" she bought from the Troutdale center for $25.

But, she added, "sometimes you can just do better watching the sales at your local" department store. Source: January 27, 1999 Oregonian, by Charyl Martinis. The New York Times contributed to this report.

(Also see: Proposed Outlet Mall in Florence)

Citizens for Florence has opposed the store, planned for a site on Highway 101 near Munsel Lake Road, since the Florence Planning Commission initially approved the project in October 1997. The group has appealed plans for the store to the Florence City Council and the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, and the matter was scheduled to be heard Monday by the Oregon Court of Appeals. "We are glad we have been able to address the concerns about our project raised by (Citizens for Florence) and other interested citizens," said Marilyn Coffel, a Fred Meyer spokeswoman. "As a result of all this community dialogue, we have a better project."

Both sides agreed that a key element of the agreement is an assurance that no sewage from the store will contaminate the Siuslaw River. Inadequate capacity at the city sewage treatment plant - particularly during periods of heavy rainfall - have led to repeated spills of raw and partially treated sewage as recently as last month.

After the project was appealed to the state land use board, the panel agreed with the citizens group on questions involving the store's effect on Florence's sewer capacity. But the panel sided with Fred Meyer on four other issues. The store and citizens group as well as the city appealed the matter to the Court of Appeals. The settlement requires that all appeals must be dropped and the land use board decision vacated.

Citizens for Florence has been criticized by some residents who welcome a Fred Meyer store and the estimated 200 full and part-time jobs it is expected to generate, but the group never intended to stop the project, said its attorney, William Sherlock. He added that the group should be credited with forcing a settlement that will benefit the community in a number of ways.

In addition to the restrictions related to the sewage issue, the agreement requires Fred Meyer to:

• Modify an on-site storm water disposal system so it can eventually be hooked into a citywide system if one is ever built. The citizens group said this will provide better protection against contamination of an aquifer that is the source of much of the city's water.
• Provide public access to a sand dune behind the store. Fred Meyer will set aside public parking for dune visitors and allow Citizens for Florence to erect an interpretive sign.
• Build pedestrian walkways between the store, adjacent businesses and nearby streets. The company also agreed to contribute $10,000 to help fund public projects aimed at improving pedestrian or bicycle access to the site if they are constructed within five years.

Fred Meyer now has 45 stores in Oregon and expects to add 10 more this year. Plans were announced last year for the sale of the Portland-based company to the Kroger Co. of Cincinnati, but the Fred Meyer stores will retain their names when the deal is completed. Source: January 22, 1999 Register Guard, by Larry Bacon.

Under the agreement, the city won’t provide sewer service to three large pending developments: a Fred Meyer store, a St. Vincent de Paul low-income housing project and a factory outlet mall.

The council also agreed to delay any annexation that would lead to a sewer hookup unless there was an emergency health hazard. And if a new sewage treatment plant is not certified by the state as “substantially complete” by the target date of Oct. 31, 2000, the city agreed to initiate a moratorium on all new sewer hookups in the city.

The agreement also calls for increased sampling, notification requirements in the case of future spills, and fines earmarked for a fisheries enhancement group if the requirements are not met. Interim City Manager Roger McCorkle praised the settlement, noting that the city would avoid a civil trial and potential fines. “We’re not facing penalties and fines by the court, and we’re not facing the moratorium they wished us to have,” he said. “So I would say the community is a winner in that sense.”

Steve Shipsey, and Oregon Shores board member, said the lawsuit heightened awareness of water quality issues. He added that the settlement means city resources now can be used to deal with sewage problems, rather than litigation.

However, McCorkle said the settlement, which will be issued as a consent decree by a federal judge, will require the city to pay $70,000 in attorney fees for the plaintiffs. The city also ran up substantial attorney fees of its own. The costs will ultimately be reflected in sewer rates, he said. Source: January 27, 1999 Register Guard, by Larry Bacon.

The appeal comes at a time when the Port of Siuslaw had finally cobbled together about $900,000 in financing for the project after discussing the boardwalk for more than a decade. Port officials hope to build the structure in the summer, then lease land behind the boardwalk for shops, restaurants and other businesses.

In a letter to the city last month, the state agency said it "does not object to the overall project concept but continues to have specific concerns with the estuarine fill element of the port's proposal." The agency was closed Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Day, and officials couldn't be reached to discuss the matter.

Port officials note that the state agency's eleventh-hour objection, which centers around an 8,000-square-foot fill, is based on a definition. The agency contends that the fill should be prohibited because the boardwalk and adjacent new businesses would not constitute a "water-dependent use." Under the city's land use plan and state rules, a water-related use would allow such a fill. "We have all along felt that this project was a water-dependent project," port Manager Tom Kartrude said. "We never really considered the water dependency issue a stumbling block." Port President Lynnette Wikstrom-Smith said she and others were shocked by the state intervention. "I still don't know where they are coming from," she said.

Now three public agencies are involved in a tug-of-war over the project. The Department of Land Conservation and Development is scheduled to take its appeal of the project before the Florence City Council on Feb. 15. If the City Council rules in favor of the port, Kartrude said, the state agency may move on to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, a process Kartrude said could delay the project for months and cost the port thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Port officials have long been looking forward to generating new jobs and lease revenue from the riverfront property.

The first step occurred in 1995 when the port - with a $300,000 package of grants and port funds - built a 200-car parking lot and extended utilities to serve future development. The port plans to spend $925,000, 68 percent of it from a federal grant, on the second phase, featuring a 20-foot wide boardwalk extending over the water and improvements to nearby commercial fishing boat docks. The project calls for stabilizing the riverbank beneath the boardwalk with a concrete seawall built atop a rock base. Pilings would be used to support the boardwalk, which would extend over the seawall. The fill would allow the boardwalk to be built near deeper water.

More importantly, the fill would also provide about 25 percent more buildable land for commercial development. Elimination of the fill would cut available land by about 7,000 square feet and could cause a marked reduction in revenue and jobs generated by the project. Such a move would reduce construction costs by about $6,000

Port commissioners will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the port office on Bay Street to discuss eliminating the fill. The Department of Land Conservation and Development has indicated it will call off its appeal if the port does so, said Kartrude, who feared the port could lose an appeals battle. "They've got all the cards," he said. But port officials remain puzzled that other state and federal agencies that look after the welfare of estuarine resources didn't object to the fill. The Division of State Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were prepared to issue fill permits, Kartrude said.

Those permits would have required mitigation on nearby port lands to improve coho salmon-rearing habitat - work Kartrude said would have improved coho runs in nearby Munsel Creek. He contended that the estuarine land proposed for the fill has little natural value because it is covered with debris from an old mill that once operated on the waterfront.

Even if it can avoid the appeal, the port commission has other issues to deal with before the project can go forward. Construction bids have come in too high, and Kartrude said the commission needs to find more money, call for new bids or cut back. Also the validity of the low bid is being challenged by one of the other bidders. Source: January 19, 1999, Register Guard, by Larry Bacon.

Both proposals are designed to retain disposal revenue that now goes to less expensive out-of-county sites, such as Coffin Butte Landfill north of Corvallis. If the county loses that money, it will have a difficult time operating its transfer stations and landfill, Sandusky said. Lane County charges higher rates, he said, because it offers services such as recycling and hazardous waste disposal, unlike sites such as Coffin Butte.

Sandusky said other states have imposed similar taxes on "exported" waste. "Let's say it's $14 a ton," he said. "We'd say you can take your waste wherever you want, but we need that $14 a ton to sustain the (county) system." Lewis Rucker, local manager of Waste Connections Inc. in Florence, said courts have found such taxes illegal elsewhere. However, he said his company wouldn't oppose a franchise agreement requiring use of county disposal sites. The county has the authority to require franchise agreements for haulers in areas outside incorporated cities but has never done so.

Sandusky's plans have largely been prompted by Waste Connections, a California-based company that bought and merged competing Florence-area hauling companies last year. Soon after arriving in town, Waste Connections began hauling its garbage to Coffin Butte, which charges $18 a ton, compared with $46 per ton at Lane County's Florence transfer station.

Sandusky said the fees paid by commercial haulers amount to 75 percent of the revenue at the Florence site. Loss of that revenue threatened to close the site, prompting Sandusky to complain to the Department of Environmental Quality. He argued that by moving garbage from small trucks to larger trucks used for the drive to Benton County, Waste Connections was operating a "transfer station" requiring a state permit.

The DEQ was aware of the operation but allowed it until the county complained. Last month, the state agency issued a notice of noncompliance, halting the activity until a permit was issued. Waste Connections plans to seek a permit, but the county will fight it. Sandusky said he worries that issuance of such a permit would prompt other haulers to seek similar permits and haul more trash to out-of-county sites. Waste Connections now dumps about 60 percent of its garbage at the Florence transfer site, but it still runs some of its biggest collection trucks to Coffin Butte.

Rucker warned that if the county succeeds in blocking trips to cheaper sites, higher rates are inevitable. Sandusky countered that for years the previous Florence-area collectors used the county transfer site and earned more than the 10 percent profit that Waste Connections claims to seek.

The Florence City Council will discuss the matter at a meeting at 7 p.m. Monday. Sandusky and representatives of the DEQ and Waste Connections will attend the meeting. Source: January 19, 1999, Register Guard, by Larry Bacon.

Gore is attempting to capture for the administration and his own presidential campaign an issue that has broad bipartisan appeal. By The Associated Press' count, last November's ballots listed about 200 state and local measures intended to limit urban sprawl, and voters approved most of them. People are increasingly unwilling to accept patterns of development that create traffic congestion, gobble open spaces, encourage leapfrogging subdivisions and cause public service costs to spiral upward. Gore understands that tapping this sentiment is both good policy and good politics.

The Clinton-Gore plan includes between $900 million and $1.5 billion for the purchase and preservation of open space, changes in federal transportation funding that would encourage mass transit and other congestion-fighting measures, incentives for local governments to work together on "smart growth" strategies, and support for efforts to clean up and redevelop abandoned industrial sites.

The underlying goal of the administration's "livability agenda" is that cities should begin to fill in rather than continuing to spread out. Achieving this goal implies stopping, or at least slowing down, the suburbanization that has gobbled vast tracts of the rural landscape in the 50 years since the federally subsidized highway system made it possible for ordinary workers to commute long distances by automobile.

Oregon adopted this goal a quarter-century ago with its statewide land use planning program, which discourages urban development outside clearly defined urban growth boundaries. The record has been mixed. Sprawl spread over large portions of the Willamette Valley in the fast-growing 1970s and 1990s, but even more farmland would have vanished if it weren't for state controls. Having pioneered a public policy of compact growth and resource land protection, Oregon can now learn from other states that have embraced the concept more recently.

In Maryland, for instance, state funds will no longer support road, utility or school construction outside existing communities. Sprawl will no longer be subsidized by the state; instead, spending will be targeted to encourage development within Maryland's cities and towns. In New Jersey, voters approved a $1 billion, 10-year program to protect half the state's remaining undeveloped land. In Austin, Texas, development is being steered away from sources of drinking water.

The federal government can play an important supporting role in these efforts, including Oregon's. Federal subsidies and tax policies encourage development in many ways, and these should be reviewed to tilt the incentives in favor of compact growth. Outright federal assistance with land purchases or conservation easements would be helpful. Federal policies could be reviewed to discourage beggar-thy-neighbor competition between localities or states for job-creating development.

Though most planning and development questions must be addressed at the state or local level, the evidence of federal interest is revealing. So is Gore's choice of the phrase "smart growth," which implies that growth can sometimes be stupid. The administration's initiative is evidence that public concern over the loss of land, taxes and livability to stupid growth patterns has become widespread. The leaders who most successfully respond to that concern will reap a significant political gain. Other political figures are welcome to join the competition for this emerging constituency's support. Source: January 19, 1999 - Register Guard Editorial.

The $16 million elementary/middle school is the product of voters' generosity two years ago - the second time in the 1990s that taxpayers in the booming Bethel School District approved bond measures for a new school. But the district is growing so fast, by up to 200 kids a year, that the 4,900-student district may need another school in just a few years. Dozens of houses are already sprouting up all around the school near Greenhill Road. "We could outstrip Meadow View in no time," Bethel Superintendent Kent Hunsaker says. "We clearly will be out in the next three years with another bond proposal for another facility."

If that happens, all homeowners in the district will be asked to share the burden. The question is: Is that fair? The district's dilemma illustrates a problem faced by fast-growing areas across Oregon: Who should pay for growth? Should people who have lived in an area for years pay for the new streets, schools and traffic lights needed to keep up with the population? Or should developers and newcomers pay all the costs?

With Oregon expected to add another 1 million people by 2015, including 90,000 in the Eugene-Springfield area, some want to shift more costs onto builders and developers. Critics of the current system say the growth-related fees that home builders pay cover only a small percentage of the costs, and that it isn't fair to stick existing residents with the bill. But developers say that raising fees would make homes so expensive that many buyers would be priced out of the market. And, they point out, everyone benefits from the new streets, schools, libraries and other services.

The issue has emerged in recent weeks as a key to the debate over the state's burgeoning population. A task force appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber has wrestled with it, as have cities, counties and school districts from Bend to Beaverton, Milwaukie to Medford. Consider:

• In Eugene, homeowners who live on Garden Way, North Delta Highway and other streets with increased heavy traffic are up in arms over city plans to assess them $20,000 to $30,000 each to pay for street upgrades. The City Council has agreed to take another look at how residents are charged for such projects.

• The Eugene-Springfield area's draft transportation plan calls for spending $638 million on roads and bike paths over the next 20 years. Yet congestion is expected to worsen anyway, indicating that our road system isn't keeping up with growth.

• In November, Eugene voters approved a $25 million bond measure to develop parks. Supporters said development fees charged to builders haven't provided enough money for new parks.

• Coburg is embroiled in a dispute over a 65 percent hike in water rates to pay for expanding the city's water system, largely as a result of growth. Coburg also faces an $11.5 million expansion of its sewer system.

• In Salem and Sisters, residents voted on measures requiring developers to pay all growth-related costs. The Sisters measure passed, but Salem's failed. In Eugene, one of the city's 19 growth-management policies calls for growth to pay its own way.

"We're going to have to deal with this," Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey said at a December City Council discussion of the street-improvement assessments. He called the question of who pays for such growth-related projects "the most important political issue" for the city in the coming year.

Keeping pace: Traditionally, local governments have relied on a range of taxes and fees to finance the demands of growth. Someone has to pay for building and operating everything from fire stations to sewage-treatment plants.

Since Oregon has been growing since the mid-1800s, it can be said that local governments have found a way to keep pace. Every street, sewer, water line, school, road and other public works project has been financed in some way. "If growth didn't pay for itself, every city in the state would be broke," says Jon Chandler, chief lobbyist for the Oregon Building Industry Association.

In periods of fast growth, however, governments have a hard time keeping up. Sewage-treatment plants in Florence, Creswell and other cities, for example, have reached capacity and frequently overflow in heavy rains, dumping raw or partially treated sewage into rivers. Congestion in Eugene-Springfield has worsened by 50 percent since the early 1980s, according to the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. Eugene needs two multimillion-dollar fire stations in the northwest part of town, but there isn't enough money for them in the capital-improvement budget.

In 1991, the Oregon Legislature allowed local governments to begin collecting "system-development" fees from developers to help pay for five growth-related things: parks, roads, sewers, water and stormwater pipes. Developers pay all on-site costs - such as the streets, sewers and water lines within a subdivision. Now they also help pay for such things as expanding sewage- and water-treatment plants or to develop parks.

Local examples are the Ferry Street Bridge expansion, widening of Barger Drive, a traffic light on West 18th Avenue and Hawkins Lane, and improvements to Willow Creek Road north of the Hyundai computer chip factory. In Eugene, the fees amount to about $4,700 per home. Springfield charges about $4,900. Coburg charges only $1,251 but is considering a substantial increase. Eugene and Springfield rank near the middle statewide, with West Linn at the top at about $8,000. Some cities, such as Oakridge, don't charge the fees at all.

But many costs can't be recovered from developers. State law forbids collections for schools, fire stations and police services, for example. "Generally, residential, industrial and commercial development doesn't pay its own way," says John Tamulonis, the city of Springfield's community and economic development director. "The community supports all three, through taxes or by other means."

Even so, the amount of money collected and spent is substantial. Since 1991, Eugene has collected $37.4 million in development fees and spent $35.2 million of it, according to a breakdown provided by the city. The biggest chunks were spent on the Ferry Street Bridge and in the Cal Young, Bethel and Churchill neighborhoods. The Eugene Water & Electric Board, which two years ago started levying a $1,701 fee per home to pay for future expansion of its water system on the McKenzie River, has collected almost $2 million annually.

Finding growth's cost: Several studies have tried to nail down the true costs of growth for each new house, with mixed results. Some limit the kinds of public services included or add categories that are difficult to quantify, such as quality of life or environmental factors.

Estimates range from $20,000 per house in a 1996 Lane Council of Governments study to $45,000 in a draft report prepared for the governor's task force on growth. Both include on- and off-site costs. A recent report by Eben Fodor, a Eugene anti-growth activist and author, pegs off-site costs at $33,259 per home in Eugene, seven times what home builders pay.

Most of the reports, however, don't fully address the ultimate question: Who should pay for growth? Should developers pay all the up-front costs, or should citizens share the burden?

The building industry's Chandler contends that since existing residents benefit from growth-related improvements, such as new highways, schools or libraries, they ought to pay a share of the costs of building them. "Every house in Oregon has a toilet; not every house has school kids," Chandler says. "It's a matter of fairness."

He also says homeowners pay the costs of growth over time in the form of property and income taxes. And, Chandler says, raising growth-impact fees to $25,000 or $30,000 per home would make houses too expensive, cutting middle-income buyers out of the market. Even without growth, he adds, the public has to spend money to replace schools and streets that become obsolete.

But Fodor says it isn't fair to force everyone to pay for something that wouldn't be needed if the population was stable. "These public costs are usually distributed across the entire population of a community through property taxes or general obligation bonds, whereas the benefit of these investments often accrue primarily to the new development," Fodor writes in his study. Take Meadow View School. The owner of a $100,000 home in the district - no matter how long they've lived there or whether they have kids - will pay about $95 extra in property taxes a year.

Inequities crop up with systems-development charges, as well. For example, say school districts could collect such fees. Is it fair for a childless couple to pay an extra $12,000 when they buy a new home, while a couple with four kids in school pay nothing if they buy an existing house?

Transportation costs are even more complex. Some of the congestion in the Eugene-Springfield area is caused by people who are simply driving more; the number of miles driven per vehicle has increased two to four times faster than the population.

Impact fees: So what's being done? Better yet: What should be done?  Tamulonis, the Springfield economic development director, says it's ultimately a political decision. When Sony Disc Manufacturing decided to build a plant in Springfield, for example, the city put together a package that included $11 million in subsidies, including new roads and sewers. Nary a resident complained, even though all residents technically picked up part of the tab, Tamulonis says. But two years later in Eugene, many critics emerged when Hyundai was offered $40 million or more in tax breaks to build a computer chip factory.

Fodor says the most logical way to deal with growth costs, short of slowing down growth, is through higher impact fees. He is on a City Council advisory committee that is reviewing each of the four city fees to see if they fully recover the cost of growth. The committee is finishing work on sewer fees and will look at parks next. At a statewide level, there may be sentiment in the Legislature this year to allow schools to impose a systems development charge. The home builders' lobby has fought off several previous attempts.

Many on the governor's task force also support using the "kicker" money - excess income taxes now returned to taxpayers - to pay for growth-related public projects. But Oregon's slowing economy may eliminate any kicker next year. "We desperately need to make investments" in roads and other public facilities, says Larry Medinger, an Ashland home builder and task force member. Since the kicker money was generated largely by new people moving into Oregon, it ought to go back to the areas where those people live to pay for growth-related projects, he says.

Kitzhaber has proposed a $140 million "livability" initiative that would give builders incentives to develop "good" projects that don't cause sprawl, as well as provide state grants and loans to cities to pay for growth-related projects. The effort has broad support, including from Chandler's building industry group. In addition, the state's largest industry group, Associated Oregon Industries, will ask the Legislature to approve a six-cent increase in the state gasoline tax and an increase in vehicle registration fees to pay for road improvements.

But Terry Moore, author of a report on growth for the governor's task force, says some things can't be resolved with traditional solutions. Innovative ideas for reducing congestion, for example, center on incentives or fees that encourage people to drive less and cities to develop more compactly. One idea, "congestion pricing," would charge a toll on roadways during peak times, or charge more for people who have to drive farther from the core of a city.

Car insurance could also be based on the number of miles driven every year, according to "Road Relief," a new report published by the nonprofit Energy Outreach Center in Olympia. "Are we keeping up with growth in our transportation infrastructure? The answer to that is a pretty obvious 'no,' " Moore says. "We are probably approaching saturation. We are going to have to solve this problem, no matter how much we grow." Source: January 17, 1999 Register Guard, by Lance Robertson.

(Also see: Real Costs of Growth Debated, and link to Eben Fodor's Report on Growth , Florence Sewage Spills )

Since a draft was issued last year, the report has been the subject of debate among government officials and developers. Critics say Fodor's conclusions were simplistic and that he wrongly assumed that the full cost of growth should be paid upfront. In Oregon, cities are allowed to collect systems development fees only for costs related to parks, roads, sewers, water and stormwater pipes.

But to try to get an accurate picture of the true cost of growth, Fodor included categories many other reports omit, such as schools ($11,809 per house), fire stations ($298) and electric power generation and distribution facilities ($8,494). Fodor also said Eugene's development fee for transportation, $833, falls far short of his estimate of the real cost: $4,430 per home, based on the proposed regional transportation plan.

Many of his conclusions are similar to those of other studies. A study two years ago by Yamhill County, southwest of Portland, found that growth-related transportation costs amounted to $4,527 per new home. A 1989 study by Florida State University professor James Frank put the total cost of growth at $27,000 to $33,000 per new home, including $11,729 to cover the costs of schools. The Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago found in 1995 that population growth not only tends to result in higher taxes but that fast-growing areas tend to see a reduction in public services.

Critics quibble with Fodor's argument that development fees should cover costs for such things as schools and fire stations. Jon Chandler, chief lobbyist for the Oregon Building Industry Association, says homeowners end up paying about half the cost of off-site growth expenses over time through property taxes and other assessments. "The infrastructure is always going to lag population growth, but it eventually gets paid for," he says.

Jim Carlson, who wrote a 1996 Lane Council of Governments study that estimated the cost of growth per house at $20,000, says he disagrees with parts of Fodor's study but says that his methodology was sound. "He uses a fairly simplistic but logical model of urban growth," Carlson says. "He's got a lot of the right stuff."

Fodor, author of the upcoming book "Better Not Bigger" by New Society Publishers, says he welcomes critical review of his study. He's confident his conclusions are accurate, and hopes to spur further debate. He says he did the study in part because governments have done a poor job of measuring the true cost of growth.

"There's an astonishing lack of information from local governments on this topic," he says. "We know more about tree frogs than about how we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on growth-related public infrastructure." Source: January 17, 1999 Register Guard, by Lance Robertson.

(Also see: link to Eben Fodor's Report on Growth)

The members unanimously agreed at their final meeting that if the state's business, civic and government leaders fail to address concerns about growth, they will be doing so at the state's peril. People are concerned about such issues as traffic, overcrowding, loss of open spaces and the threat to natural resources, they found.

Mayor Helen Berg of Corvallis, a panel member, said the situation is not as bad as many people seem to think. "People are fearful we are going the way of California," she said. "We are not going the way of California. The difference between Oregon and every other state is our land-use planning system."

The panel's ½-inch-thick final document, called "Growth and Its Impacts in Oregon," will be sent to Kitzhaber, who appointed the 15-member task force in June to study growth and develop a blueprint of tools and strategies that local governments can use in coping with growth issues.

But the panel decided early on to go beyond the governor's assignment and attempt to also develop recommendations for new measures for the governor and Legislature to consider. Among the recommendations, which were unanimously approved:

• Enable communities to take a regional approach to planning to better protect farmland and forests and achieve other statewide land-use goals.

• Study whether there are "better ways" to limit growth in certain areas to protect natural resources.

• Enable local governments to tax the added value that is created when property is added to the urban growth boundary, with the money used to help defray the cost of growth and promote affordable housing. But Judie Hammerstad, the former Clackamas County commissioner who headed the subcommittee that developed the recommendations, said this might run afoul of voter-approved limits on property tax increases.

• Develop strategies such as a state-financed loan fund to enable local governments to finance roads, sewers and other infrastructure needs in a timely manner.

• Approve an increase in the gasoline tax to finance transportation improvements across the state and also to establish financing mechanisms to meet local transit needs.

• Improve coordination among state agencies on issues affecting growth.

• Provide technical assistance to local governments to help them manage growth, including a "how to" manual for growth management.

• And last, thinking that more work is needed, the panel recommended establishing a new committee or task force to help implement the recommendations and to address "fairness issues" concerning "who should pay for growth."

But most members seemed satisfied with the final document, including Portland City Attorney Jeffrey Rogers, a slow-growth advocate who at the last meeting said that in an attempt to achieve balance among all the factions, the panel had "ended up with pablum." Hammerstad said some members wanted to ask the Legislature to abolish the requirement for cities to maintain a 20-year supply of land for housing inside urban growth boundaries. Source: January 14, 1999, The Oregonian, by R. Gregory Nokes.

Although this statement is global in its scope, it likely has application to many water systems in the United States, particularly municipal-owned systems. Often encountered is a reluctance to raise rates, or if rates are increased, they are not based on any true cost of service study.

Water utility reluctance to charge adequate rates may be due to a loss of perspective. Water systems may ignore rate issues due to political considerations, a desire to avoid upsetting customers, lack of appreciation of the necessity for adequate rates, or simply a negative inertia. A 10-, 20- or 30-% rate increase can seem monumental, particularly as time passes since any prior rate adjustment. However, water is a bargain even at more realistic rates. For example, at $4 per 1,000 gallons, a gallon of water is only 4/10 of one cent.

Rates for water service should be determined so as to provide the opportunity to recover the costs of service. True, many courts have tempered this principle to allow flexibility. However, there is no escape from the reality that, unless all costs of service are recovered, someone is subsidizing water operations or some cost is not being recovered. This conclusion is even more true as water systems upgrade plants and other facilities, or incur increased operating expense to satisfy ever more stringent Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.

However, the point is to recognize that costs of service should be identified and recovered equitably. This fact particularly is important in today's environment of aging infrastructure, increased demand and, in the United States, increasingly more stringent regulations under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Rates are not "reasonable" if they are inadequate to assure good service into the future. In point of fact, rates that are "too low" are no bargain.

Dan Kucera is a partner with the Chicago law firm of Chapman and Cutler, specializing in public utilities, water and wastewater and environmental law. Source: January 6, 1999, Water Online, by Daniel J. Kucera

"The idea of resignation did not come out of our camp," Burns said Tuesday. "Ken approached the council a long time ago with the idea." Nevertheless, a statement handed out by Hobson after the council action said his departure effective Friday is "by mutual consent" between himself and a majority of the newly seated council.

"They would prefer a new manager, and I feel I would be more effective working for another council," Hobson said in the statement. The statement didn't indicate future job plans, and he was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. Hobson, 50, came to Florence from Newport in 1992 after working five years as assistant city manager there and six years as administrator for the city of Cascade Locks. His current annual salary and benefits package was about $84,500. The council approved four months' severance pay.

Burns, who was elected mayor after serving six years as a councilor, said Hobson apparently saw "handwriting on the wall" and approached some council members in October about a possible resignation. The manager later hired an attorney to help work out the separation agreement.

The city government overseen by Hobson has weathered its share of controversy in recent years over development issues, including a proposed Fred Meyer store, a factory outlet mall and a lawsuit about the city's sewage treatment system. As manager, Hobson became a lightning rod for criticism from all sides of controversial issues. "I think he was in an untenable position, and it may have looked like it was going to be worse with the fights to come," said Della Weston, one of the newly elected councilors.

Another new councilor, Dianne Burch, said Hobson may have been concerned about a different council management style. "I don't think he was going to have as much free reign, and maybe that was bothering him a little bit," she said.

Burns and some council members offered praise Wednesday for Hobson's time at the city's helm. "There's been a lot of progress, and the manager is responsible for pulling all that together," said longtime councilor David Braley. Burns said the council expects to name an interim manager soon and will probably contact the League of Oregon Cities for help in finding a permanent replacement. Source: January 13, 1999 Register Guard, by Larry Bacon.

Holz is the region’s Pied Piper of what he calls “zero-impact development.” He calls for leaving more forests and building much narrower homes and roads. He would do away with sidewalks and curbs, as well as the drains, pipes and stormwater detention ponds that lace every new housing development these days. He even talks of growing grass on roofs and streets and building basement cisterns to capture rainfall.

For months, he has been urging local governments to give his ideas a try. And with federal protection looming for the Puget Sound chinook, some are toying with doing just that. Holz’s goal is to minimize impervious surfaces, such as pavement and roofs, that keep water from soaking into the ground and evaporating back into the air.

That runs counter to the past 50 years of evolution in suburban housing development. Almost every jurisdiction has written volumes of rules to mandate things such as wide streets, low, sprawling homes, sidewalks and increasingly complex stormwater runoff systems.

Holz’s solutions may sound extreme. “There’s no such thing as zero-impact development,” says Lloyd Warrent, director of Bellevue’s Utilities Department. But Holz figures nothing short of drastic change will work to preserve streams and salmon. And some prominent people say he may be right.

Snohomish County officials are considering carving an exception into local building rules to let Holz try a zero-impact development. “This is a very serious issue for the development community,” says Stephen Holt, director of the county’s Planning and Development Services Division. “We have to be willing to take some risks.”

About 10% of rain sticks to trees. Almost another 40% is soaked up by plant roots and the rubble on a forest floor to be released back into the air. Only about half the water soaks into the ground and migrates, slowly, to streams, Holz says. Level the trees, bulldoze soils and lay out wide streets lined with homes, and the situation changes. A lot of surface runoff has to be collected, channeled and stored.

Holz claims that the damage stems even from relatively low levels of housing density. Relying on research by several local scientists, he says streambeds start to unravel when impervious surfaces cover as little as 5% of a watershed. By the time coverage hits 20%, Holz says, “most streams are completely destroyed.”

In contrast, Holz figures many housing developments currently exceed 75% impervious surface. Local governments have tried to stem damage through engineering, mainly by expanding storage ponds. But no matter how much they expand the ponds, Holz says, they fail to prevent high flows.

Holz casts himself in the role of child in the fairy tale who said the emperor had no clothes. Most builders and planners are in denial, he says. But federal law may jolt them out of it, he says. The Endangered Species Act prohibits significant damage to the habitat of a protected species. If Puget Sound chinook come under the act’s protection next year, as expected, the act could bar developments that damage streams.

In talks and slide shows, Holz has started to frame an alternative model for development. To minimize homes’ impervious “footprint” he calls for taller, thinner houses, perhaps in duplexes with underground parking. Leaving at least 100 feet between homes, Holz would keep 60% of the trees standing and avoid lawns, which don’t absorb water well. Local roads would be barely wide enough for two cars to slip past each other, and driveways would be dual paved strips with grass between them.

Holz concedes that density requirements may clash with zero-impact development. The engineer in him says they could be reconciled, though at a price. Source: December 27, 1998, Register Guard. by The Associated Press.

Since starting in November, work crews under the direction of They Dyer Partnership, the project’s planners, have been using two innovative methods to repair stretches of deteriorating pipe in the 20-year-old system, said engineer Steve Donovan.

The first method has been “sliplining,” Donovan said. This involved digging up a short section of the line, cutting off the top of the exposed pipe and then inserting a slightly-smaller diameter plastic pipe inside the old line. Overall, about 1,258 feet of the system’s pipes have been repaired using the sliplining method, said Sandi Whitaker, the district’s general manager.

But although economical, for the large-diameter, deeply-laid sewer mains running next to Cape Arago Highway, the engineers chose to use a second method called "cured in place pipe,” which involves casting a new pipe inside the old one, Donovan said. To do this, crews with Gelco Services Inc., a Salem firm, first placed a felt liner impregnated with a special polyester resin into the old sewer line, then pumped water heated to 180 degrees into it. The hot water activated the resin, which after several hours hardened into a new inside lining about four inches thick. Although more expensive than sliplining, the cured in place pipe was “definitely the premiere way to rehabilitate the system,” Donovan said.

About 1,071 feet of sewer line was repaired by the CIPP method, Donovan said. Altogether, both methods saved the district thousands of dollars compared to having to dig the lines up and replace them. The $563,000 renovation project, which is expected to be finished later this month, is one of the largest projects the Charleston Sanitary District has undertaken, Whitaker said. Half of the project’s cost is being paid for by a federal grant and half is a rural utility loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The sewer line renovations are a “priority one” item in the district’s master plan, Whitaker said. The whole aim is to cut down on the amount of water that seeps into the system through flaws in the pipe and from rain gutters from houses which drain into the sewer system.

The program has worked, Whitaker said. Even the “little bits and maintenance” they have been working on since 1997 have allowed the addition of 100 customers to the system without increasing the load on the Coos Bay sewage treatment system, which serves the Charleston district, she said. Source: January 11, 1999, The World, by Andy Porter.

Reedsport draws its water from Clear Lake, which lies along Highway 101 about five miles south of the city. The lake covers about 320 acres and is 120 feet deep. It is closed to public entry. Logging, recreation and other land-use activities that could threaten Reedsport’s drinking water are strictly prohibited inside the lake’s two-square-mile watershed.

In fact, the lake is virtually surrounded by a high chain-link fence to prevent people from swimming or boating in the lake’s pristine waters. Discussions are currently underway to protect the lake further by possibly relocating a portion of Highway 101.

The residents of Florence likewise drink water from a lake, which, coincidentally, is also named Clear Lake. This lake, about three miles north of the city, covers 153 acres and is 100 feet deep. It lies between sand dunes to the west and a steep forested ridge to the east.

Like Reedsport’s Clear Lake, it provides drinking water so pure that it requires no filtration and only small amounts of chlorine to destroy bacteria. The agency responsible for providing this water is the Heceta Water District.

The cities of Reedsport and Florence are light years apart
when it comes to protecting their respective
sources of municipal drinking water.

Then years ago, the Heceta Water District considered purchasing all of the undeveloped land in the lake’s watershed. As owners, the district could have maintained tight control over watershed uses, prohibiting all except water supply. Unfortunately, the land was never purchased because of the district’s financial limitations and the threat of legal action arising from possible condemnation procedures undertaken by the district to acquire the land.

Development of the Clear Lake watershed, and subsequent impacts from lakeside residents, will almost certainly reduce lake water purity. Studies over the past 30 years have shown that housing developments and recreational activities around other coastal lakes -- including Mercer, Munsel, Woahink and Siltcoos -- have resulted in significant lake degradation. This is particularly true for lakes into which lakeside residents discharge their sewage via septic tank drainfield systems.

Moreover, lakeside homes are major sources of pesticides, landscape fertilizers, automobile pollutants and countless other contaminants that enter the lake through surface and groundwater runoff.

Proponents of real estate development on Clear Lake admit that the lake will probably degrade, but they argue that the problem can be solved by merely filtering the lake’s water for public consumption. This claim -- that filtration can maintain safe, high quality drinking water -- is often made to justify development and other land use activities. Land developers argue that filtration cleans the water and makes it safe to drink. So, they ask, why not develop the property and have clean water too? But filtering does not remove dissolved contaminants such as trace metals (lead, arsenic, chromium, mercury) and a host of potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals washed into the lake from residential areas. And despite claims to the contrary, it is questionable as to whether filtration can remove disease-producing bacteria derived form lake residents and their pets. If not, the water will require treatment with larger amounts of chlorine.

But chlorine itself can pose a risk to water users by combining with certain organic compounds to produce harmful substances called trihalomethanes, including chloroform. Although there are other methods to disinfect drinking water, such as ozone treatment, these alternatives can be more expensive and inefficient.

Indeed, to bulldoze the lake’s protective watershed and cover it with asphalt and lake-polluting houses would be unwise and irresponsible. If that should happen and the lake eventually degraded, as it surely would, the community and its inhabitants who drink Clear Lake water would pay the consequences in terms of higher water costs, greater health risks and the loss of a magnificent water source capable of supplying them and their descendants for many generations.

Clearly, the citizens of nearby Reedsport understand this better than their neighbors to the north.

Douglas W. Larson is a water-quality consultant who teaches in the Department of Biology at Portland State University. Source: The Oregonian, January 6, 1999, by Douglas W. Larson.

Link to: Florence Water Supply

City officials said torrential rainfall combined with some snafus in the sewage system overwhelmed an outdated treatment plant. The city hopes to have a new plant on line by October 2000. Until then, the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition has argued that no new sewage hookups should be allowed. City officials contend that proposal is too extreme and could devastate the local economy.

The city discharged a combined 1.68 million gallons of partially treated effluent from the sewage treatment plant on Dec. 28 and 29. Another 93,150 gallons of untreated sewage overflowed into the river from a pump station at the end of Ivy Street from Dec. 28 through Dec. 30. The city reported both spills to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Because of the combination of circumstances, Hobson said a sewer hookup moratorium wouldn’t have made a difference, even if 100 fewer residences were hooked up. Rain gauges around town measured between 5.55 and 6.36 inches during a 24-hour period, Hobson said. With that much rain, stormwater infiltrates the sewer system and overpowers the treatment plant.

Complicating matters, city officials said, was the failure of a plug blocking off an old, unused sewer line near the Ivy Street pump station. The failure allowed a huge amount of water into the system. During legal proceedings, the city has argued that it has extensively upgraded leaky old sewer lines and made improvements at the Ivy Street pump station to make sewage bypasses and spills less likely. Those improvements apparently were not enough, Tebbutt said.

“The fact of the matter is, that sewage plant just can’t handle what’s coming at it,” he said. Tebbutt said the recent spills illustrate a basic problem: Sewage treatment capacity during the last two decades hasn’t kept up with community growth. Information about those discharges, as well as two others in December totaling more than 1 million gallons of partially treated effluent, will be considered by federal Magistrate Tom Coffin if he, in fact, rules on the Oregon Shores lawsuit, Tebbutt said. Coffin has encouraged the city and Oregon Shores to reach a negotiated settlement on the moratorium issue. The groups have been negotiating for months, and both recently submitted new arguments. A court conference is scheduled within two weeks.

Even if the city is able to stave off a moratorium, Hobson said it’s likely there will be some development restrictions until the $10.5 million plant expansion is completed. Meanwhile, Florence Public Works Director Ken Lanfear said measures will be taken within the next month to improve the movement of sewage from the Ivy Street pump station to the treatment plant. But he said that without recent improvements to the pump station and lines, an even worse spill could have occurred. “Considering the rain we had, this was not bad,” he said. “Without the improvements, it would have been 1.5 million gallons per day for a week.”

Excessive rain wasn’t to blame for the two spills earlier in December. One spill was caused by mechanical failure, and the other resulted from a die-off of microorganisms that break down sewage. The organisms apparently died after toxic material was illegally dumped into a manhole, Lanfear said. There have been four such incidents in recent months, and a police investigation is underway.

Despite the sewage discharge, there probably was no health hazard, said Julie Berndt of the Department of Environmental Quality. The rain-swollen Siuslaw likely diluted the sewage so much that bacterial levels remained at a safe level, she said. Public works crews posted areas along the river, warning residents of potential danger. Berndt said the DEQ and the city have an agreement allowing less-stringent sewage effluent standards under certain conditions, but she emphasized that regulations are in place. Although fines are possible and have been imposed against the city in the past, she said they were unlikely in the most recent incidents. Source: Register Guard, January 6, 1998, by Larry Bacon.

(Also see: Florence Sewage Spills )